Thoughts on Life, Love, Politics, Hypocrisy and Coming Out in Mid-Life

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Radical Islamists and the American Far Right: Cousins of the Terrorist Kind

I have long maintained that both American right wing extremism and Islamic terrorism ultimately stem from largely the same source: religion. Religion and modernity that threaten the simplistic house of cards fantasy worlds that both American born Christian extremists - be they KKK members or members of "patriot groups" - and fundamentalist Muslims live in. To both groups, those who are different or who reject their beliefs are mortal enemies. While the violence of Islamic extremists gets far more media coverage, the reality is that "real American" and "godly Christian" extremists pose a real risk to the general public and the LGBT community since religion labels us as "other" in the minds of the weak minded and mentally challenged. An essay I came across looks at the parallels between the two extremist/would be terrorist groups. Here are excerpts:

The gay community
in Los Angeles, seemingly, got very lucky last weekend. Especially compared to
their counterparts in Orlando.A
21-year-old Indiana man with a car full of guns and bomb-making chemicals was arrested by
Santa Monica police Saturday. He told police he was going to
the Los Angeles gay-pride parade later that day, but didn’t say what he had in
mind.

In
the car was an astonishing
arsenal: a loaded AR-15 assault rifle rigged to allow 60 shots to be
fired without pausing, two other loaded rifles, a stun gun, a hunting knife,
loads of ammunition, and a trunkful of chemicals mixed and ready to explode as
a car bomb. It soon emerged that the man – James Wesley Howell of Charlestown –
had a history of
violent confrontations and gun-related criminal charges, and
was fleeing
charges of child molestation when he left Indiana.The
situation spoke ominously of an imminent domestic-terrorism attack – especially
in light of the massacre that had occurred at the gay nightclub Pulse in
Orlando late Saturday. However, since none of his arsenal was used and no
violence committed, Howell was only charged with
a variety of felonies related to bomb and gun possession. The
parade went off without notable incident, though anti-gay protesters were
present and visible.The
outcome stood in stark contrast to what occurred that same evening at Pulse, . . . The
Orlando massacre sparked an Islamophobic backlash, with some radicalscalling
for the immediate deportation of all Muslims from the United States and arming
U.S. citizens in response. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump used
the occasion to declare himself “right” for his earlier declarations about
Muslims, and doubled down by reiterating
his earlier call for Muslims to be banned from entering the
United States. He also
suggested that President Obama might be secretly conspiring on
behalf of the terrorists.In
the meantime, reporting on the potential terrorist attack on the Los Angeles
gay-pride event was subdued, since whatever Howell had been planning was
diverted when police pulled him over in a traffic stop and found the arsenal.
It was further complicated by the eventual
discovery that Howell was himself bisexual, and his friends and
family indicated he had no known animus toward gays and
lesbians. In
a similar vein, it soon emerged that Mateen had actually
frequented Pulse and had advertised on gay hookup forums, . . .The
ongoing questions about the motivations of both Mateen and Howell made murky at
best any public understanding of the two incidents – which were seemingly
unconnected, especially when it came to the specific motives and backgrounds of
the actors involved. One seemed clearly inspired by Islamist anti-western
rhetoric, while the other seemed at most fueled by the typical far-right-wing
loathing of gays with an added twist of self-loathing.Yet
they were in fact deeply connected by the simple reality that both represented
acts of domestic terrorism directed at LGBT targets, and both occurred on the
same evening, separated only by a few hours. And coming to terms with these
acts – both in a realistic sense and with the hope of taking action that
actually prevents them from bubbling up in the first place – requires
understanding them as closely related, two aspects of the same vicious and
hateful coin: right-wing extremism.The
murders, and the near-miss, this weekend were not, of course, the first time
that gay and lesbian establishments have been the targets of terrorist acts.
Indeed, this sort of violence is hauntingly familiar to anyone who has tracked
the history of hate crimes and other vicious acts that have been the horrifying
reality for most members of the LGBT community for the past half-century and
longer. Until recent years, the violence has emanated primarily from
two sources: hate groups, particularly neo-Nazi and skinhead groups as well as
various Klan organizations, all of whom have placed the LGBT community as one
of their most loathed targets; and far-right evangelical Christians,
particularly those who claim that the Bible demands the death penalty for
homosexuality, and the radicals who act on those beliefs.

Prior
to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, most Americans readily thought of
radicals like Rudolph and his far-right cohort, Timothy McVeigh, as the
terrorists they clearly were. After 9/11, however, the picture became
increasingly muddled, as public and law-enforcement officials, as well as the
media, increasingly focused on the image of terrorism as emanating solely from
turbaned, Arabic-speaking radicals inspired by extreme Islamic fundamentalism,
or Islamism, as it’s popularly known.It’s
also worth recalling that the American far right – particularly the neo-Nazis
and white supremacists who are among the most vicious homophobes most often
associated with hate crimes and terrorist anti-LGBT violence – openly celebrated
those Islamist attacks on Americans back in 2001,
just as they recently celebrated the Orlando
massacre.(Wrote Andrew Anglin, editor of the neo-Nazi website
The Daily Stormer: “From the bottom of my heart, and on behalf of all neo-Nazi
White supremacists, I want to offer a sincere ‘thank you’ to Omar.")That
is because even though the nominal wellsprings of their ideology may differ
widely – i.e., either white-supremacist/neo-Nazi ideology or far-right
Christianist ideology, or extreme Islamic fundamentalism – the cores of their
respective appeals, as well as the psychological profiles of the people they
attract as followers, is remarkably similar in nature as well as outcomes. They
have the same enemies, and the same targets, because they think and behave in
remarkably similar ways.

In
the end, both a religious and cultural variations of right-wing extremism. And
what they share in common is much more substantial than the differences of
their nominal religions.As Joshua
Holland recently observed, in an ironic kind of twist, the
absolutism associated with the most fanatical expressions of their respective
religions, which in turn induces them to denounce “unbelievers” of other
faiths, is something they all share: “The details differ, but the defining
characteristic of all right-wing religionists is an abiding contempt
for religious pluralism. They deny the legitimacy of other faiths. All
conservative religious traditions are hostile toward gays and lesbians and
those who reject traditional gender roles. Most embrace religious nationalism
and reject multiculturalism.”They
also share a fundamentalist approach to their belief systems, insisting on the
inerrancy whatever their founding scriptures might be – in the case of
Islamists, the Koran; of extremist Christians, the Bible; of far-right
“Patriot” militiamen, the Constitution of the United States; of neo-Nazis,
Hitler’s Mein Kampf as well as a handful of other works that
have scriptural import for them. . . . . They all insist that
only their interpretation is the correct one.[F]undamentalism is natural byproduct of modern life,
representing the needs of the people who are left behind by modernity –
economically, culturally, socially, and spiritually. This applies equally to
other kinds of fundamentalism, such as the bizarre interpretation of American
law and the nature of government that arises in the worldview of right-wing
American “constitutionalists.” The terrorists who are produced by these belief
systems are all deeply alienated from modern society, and their violence is
always directed at the goal of returning society to its “traditional” values.

To
fundamentalists and other right-wing True Believers, multiculturalism is an
abomination, since the notion of the legitimacy of other religions or belief
systems is nonexistent for them. It’s their way or the highway – though only
the most nakedly racist among them admit that their hostility to
multiculturalism naturally defaults back to a race-based system of white
supremacy.In
the end, this means that, for the radicals inclined to act out their beliefs
violently, the targets of their hatred and violence often are the same.
Right-wing extremists almost universally direct their terrorism at the
representatives of modernism and multiculturalism in their own minds:
democratic institutions and governments, liberals, LGBT folk, various racial
and ethnic minorities (especially Jews).[R]adical Islam is a kind of right-wing extremism, and has
much more in common with American Klansmen and “Patriots” than any of them are
willing to acknowledge. . . . . This is important to place in the larger
context of domestic terrorism: As a study I have recently completed of American
domestic terrorism between 2008 and the present (to be published later this
summer through the Center for Investigative Reporting) demonstrates, American
right-wing extremists committed acts of terrorism in the United States at more
than twice the rate of domestic Islamist extremists in that time period, with
more than double the casualties.

These
recent events have all underscored not just the importance of coming to terms
with domestic terrorism of all kinds, but of recognizing that Islamist and
American right-wing extremist terrorism are very closely related, and often
target the very same vulnerable people – as well as understanding that, over
those past eight years, American right-wing extremist terrorists (nearly all of
whom are white) have been even more dramatically increasing the levels of
lethal violence in the country.To
understand terrorism, we first have to shed our great national blind spot
regarding who commits it – namely, the racial one.

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Out gay attorney in a committed relationship; formerly married and father of three wonderful children; sometime activist and political/news junkie; survived coming out in mid-life and hope to share my experiences and reflections with others.
In the career/professional realm, I am affiliated with Caplan & Associates PC where I practice in the areas of real estate, estate planning (Wills, Trusts, Advanced Medical Directives, Financial Powers of Attorney, Durable Medical Powers of Attorney); business law and commercial transactions; formation of corporations and limited liability companies and legal services to the gay, lesbian and transgender community, including birth certificate amendment.

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